J. Donald Boudreau and Margaret Somerville of McGill University argued that physicians should not be permitted to assist in suicide since doing so conflicts with the duty of physicians to heal. Nikola Biller-Andorno of the University of Zurich presented the position that physicians have a duty not only to heal but also to ease suffering and that in the case of some patients, this may involve assisting them in ending their lives.

I personally know good doctors on both sides of this issue, who all sincerely believe their positions are morally correct. Nonetheless when all factors are considered, I believe physician-assisted suicide should be permitted, provided that there are appropriate legal safeguards to protect patients and physicians. On their weekly podcast Philosophy in Action, my wife Dr. Diana Hsieh (PhD, philosophy) and co-host Greg Perkins recently discussed this issue. Here are some of their main points.

In particular, your life doesn’t belong to your family, society, the State, or God.

When Brittany Maynard sought assisted suicide in Oregon because of a terminal brain cancer, she wrote:

Who has the right to tell me that I don’t deserve this choice? That I deserve to suffer for weeks or months in tremendous amounts of physical and emotional pain? Why should anyone have the right to make that choice for me?

People have different tolerances for what counts as a life worth living. One person should not be condemned to a life of misery — a life that to him or her is not worth living — just because somebody else disagrees. It's hubris for an outsider to proclaim, “We think your life is worth living no matter how miserable you are.”

I recognize that many people hold a different view. For instance, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has said that he would likely veto any assisted suicide bill that reached his desk because, “All life is precious and is a gift from God, and no life is disposable.” He certainly has the right to make that decision for himself. But it would be wrong for him to impose his particular religious viewpoint on everyone else in the state of New Jersey.